I imagine it's probably near impossible to prevent a determined community from creating some kind of DPS benchmark, but it'd be great if meters didn't exist in Pantheon at release. I feel like a DPS meter reduces the game to a math problem and kind of takes away some of its spirit. Thoughts?
Wholeheartedly agree. Nothing worse than being called out because some program somewhere said I wasn't performing on par, even if my class isn't meant to be a DPSer. I get called out like that on Final Fantasy 14 as a healer class ("Well, your DPS wasn't above 300...you failed", etc). So please, dear gods, no sanctioned group-wide DPS meters. If they're available, make them available as a single-person when on training dummies (if those exist). IE: I start combat with a training dummy, a small meter pops up so I can guage myself on my own performance and adjust as needed. These group-wide meters shouldn't exist, and I feel that they lead to elitism. Granted, even with the training dummy meters you'll get guilds that want you to post a screenshot of your DPS (Elitists) before you can join their raid team, so even that may be detrimental.
I talked about this already in some of my posts...
I don't want to see any add-ons allowed. Include what you want or intend at the start of the game then let players do what they can do.
DPS meters are the worst because it becomes nothing but a means for some people to justify how good they are and in the process can hurt other people who might not ever reach their level. If a group can get the job done, that is all that should matter. If that group had a superstar, they should have felt proud of their contributions and recognition as being such but should not have to boast about it by spamming their data. I think we all can remember such great players in EQ who did not boast with DPA data (they might have strutted around in nice gear though :)
If a group cannot get it done, that is incentive in itself to get better. I actually love progressing with friends of various skill levels because you get to coach, lead, and work toward common goals, and when you reach them, helping someone along, it is very rewarding.
There were just some threads about this in the last few weeks.
They intend to have logs, which people will parse. Parsing means damage meters will be a thing.
I would hope that combat in Pantheon will be complex enough that merely doing the most damage won't necessarily reflect how good a person is.
Dullahan said:There were just some threads about this in the last few weeks.
They intend to have logs, which people will parse. Parsing means damage meters will be a thing.
I would hope that combat in Pantheon will be complex enough that merely doing the most damage won't necessarily reflect how good a person is.
Most likely we'll see an ACT plugin if there's logs. As such, using a third party program to parse the logs should be against the EULA if VR decides that they don't want to encourage it. That way you could report players for posting log parses, or take FFXIV's stance on this: Yeah, it's illegal, but you can do it so long as you don't post them in-game and everyone in your group is alright with it.
I'm gonna swing the other way a bit. As a tank in eq I'm not really top-tier dps or anything but I do run a dps meter. Do I link it every-time I get "ubah" dps, no I don't. But when the group is chugging along and I see people who somehow magically stay at 100% mana and/or endurance while I'm pulling, tanking and dpsing to the best of my ability it grinds me a bit that some people just wanna hit auto attack and get free xp basically.
Do I say so and so sucks you can't dps? No but if after a full day of xp'ing and they pull less dps than me as a tank in eq or the bard it makes me not want to invite them back. I understand it's a game and people want to unwind, relax etc. but I still want people to put some effort into it, I don't like giving free rides. I'm not saying you need to pull top 1% world wide rankings dps wise but I'd like you to at least use your resources, hit some buttons, hit those nice adps stuff everyone loves and all.
I enjoy tanks because I can set the pace and most often people are happy to follow me wherever through the dungeon, but when I invite someone I like to think they can at least pull some of the weight, if not I might as well go box, or in eq if you aren't out dps'ing my wizard merc on balanced than there's not really a reason to invite you I suppose is my train of thought.
In any case my 2 cents.
Hate meters or allowing them. That is like letting someone drink a fifth and telling them they can't act drunk in front of others. It will get abused and the game becomes segregated. To me, like you stated Kantan, if you see behaviors in a common group or raid and you are not succeeding, you simply do not allow them to participate or call them out. That is what a good leader must do to progress those wanting to achieve more.
I quit WoW because that is what the whole game became, displaying healing or dps meters after everyone dam raid and there was ALWAYS some immature conversations either boasting or putting someone down. I do not play games to put up with that. Without them, no issues...
Anyway, to each their own. It could honestly be a deal breaker for me and Pantheon, that is how much of a problem I think it is. EQ never had that and it was perfectly fine, reputation got around whether you were good or not and that is key in a "social" game they are after.
I agree that the e-peen thing is silly, especially if you're not in a top 1% guild or raid or something, say like world first mythic in wow. But in the other 99.99% of stuff/time as long as someone is giving it a shot it's all gravy to me. I suppose I see it as a dps meter will tell me quicker/easier if this person is just coasting along/wants free xp or not. While before dps meters you could at the end of the day you know the killing rate was really slow today, maybe talk to some of your guildies/your friends you're with or just look how quickly the dps classes are using resources or even how engaged they are. A dps meter to me just tells me a bit easier/quicker/in hard data if this person is someone I want to invite back. It is not something I link and go, I'm number 1 haha u suck!
I will say though even if we don't have dps meters of any type people will always know who/are known for high or cruddy dps, or a person that goes all out in every group or a slacker. I remember that even when I first played eq, the good players/those who try will stand out and those that don't will be known. Even if no dmg was shown in logs, on chats, even if the dmg on any ability was completely unknown people would just go by "feel" of what people are good/do good dps and those that don't.
Also I will say dps meters are good for parsing other things besides in dps, say on a test server or if a new patch makes changes to your class/their abilities, you want to phrase those new/changed abilities and see how you compare to before etc. I've seen in eq the devs ask for people to parse changes on test or ask for logs/parses too. Say you have two abilities are the same timers, over a course of a few hours including their reuse timers etc how would you know what one is better for burst or sustained or such, especially when it may not be obvious as one simply takes more off the mobs hp than another. Or say the old str or dex augs for a melee? There are many things that parsing would be beneficial for, people like to see numbers/hard data. People like to know who/what/where/when/how/why etc of their character/the characters stats/their damage/gear etc.
I suppose what I mean while you will always run into those types with dps meters, dps meters/parsing can be beneficial too. And even if there were zero meters people would find some way to guage a player that does good dps and those that don't, it's inevitable.
I can definitely agree that meters have their uses. I used them in WoW just to satiate my own curiosity, and they can be nice to have a little friendly competition here and there on raids. I guess my thought is that when a community as a whole decides to focus more on the numbers, they lose sight of the purpose of the game a little bit, which for EQ (in my opinion) was to have a grand adventure among friends. I think a lot of current MMO's have sort of lost their way in this regard.
Pyye said:Hate meters or allowing them. That is like letting someone drink a fifth and telling them they can't act drunk in front of others. It will get abused and the game becomes segregated. To me, like you stated Kantan, if you see behaviors in a common group or raid and you are not succeeding, you simply do not allow them to participate or call them out. That is what a good leader must do to progress those wanting to achieve more.
I quit WoW because that is what the whole game became, displaying healing or dps meters after everyone dam raid and there was ALWAYS some immature conversations either boasting or putting someone down. I do not play games to put up with that. Without them, no issues...
Anyway, to each their own. It could honestly be a deal breaker for me and Pantheon, that is how much of a problem I think it is. EQ never had that and it was perfectly fine, reputation got around whether you were good or not and that is key in a "social" game they are after.
Obiously people abhor or like combat parsers based on their experience how a game's community handled the information. I somehow don't think that Pantheon's community will ever become immature like the community you described in WoW, leading you to quit said game.
My experience in EQ2 with the Advanced Combat Tracker is quite positive. It is used heavily, but people comment on parses only in case of very serious under performers aka afk leechers or people who have absolutely no clue about their class or frequent wipes happen and people are too hasty to blame tank or healer. As a healer, I especially hate the leechers when I am healing me a carpal tunnel syndrome in a dungeon and there are one or two people who spring to action only if the loot boxes are opened.
Still, despite this beloved combat tracker, the EQ2 community is one of the nicest around, very forgiving if someone is new to the game or class (and is open about it). There is the occasional troll, but still, the community resembles nothing like you might have experienced in WoW.
Then, I think that for a person who really wants to improve his/her performance, a tool to measure it unbiased is mandatory. Not all people in EQ2 use ACT, for example. And my experience with them is that they sometimes really think they saved the day when in fact, they were not living up to their potential and only heavily suffering from Dunning Kruger effect.
So, long story short, for me, information is a good thing and my conviction is that Pantheon's community can handle combat parsers without deteriorating the community.
I'm seeing some false cause fallacies being thrown around in here. Correlation != causation. Just because people use parsing tools to be a jerk, doesn't mean there is a problem with parsing.
Most of the problems being brought up can be avoided by simply playing with different (nicer) people.
And please, suggesting people be punished for posting data available in both your chat and log? Get a grip.
To some extent you can change who you play with. However, I think you can't really get away from it if meters are what most people choose to focus on, and my concern is that they will over time, given the chance. There's a lot more to a game like EQ than straight deeps, but that's all the meters focus on. Other roles are rarely benchmarked in any meaningful capacity. I do like the idea of there being a training dummy or the like that you can test yourself on, but it would be nice to keep it out of groups. I think you can tell when someone is slacking in a regular group, and in my experience it's pretty unlikely that one or two people playing non optimally are going to be the reason that you can't kill a boss in a raid, so the point is moot.
I definitely get that it's a tough thing. The data is valuable to people who like to min / max and of course for developers for balance purposes. I'd just hate to see it become the core focus of the community because that's not really what I'm looking for in Pantheon.
rojo said:To some extent you can change who you play with. However, I think you can't really get away from it if meters are what most people choose to focus on, and my concern is that they will over time, given the chance. There's a lot more to a game like EQ than straight deeps, but that's all the meters focus on. Other roles are rarely benchmarked in any meaningful capacity. I do like the idea of there being a training dummy or the like that you can test yourself on, but it would be nice to keep it out of groups. I think you can tell when someone is slacking in a regular group, and in my experience it's pretty unlikely that one or two people playing non optimally are going to be the reason that you can't kill a boss in a raid, so the point is moot.
I definitely get that it's a tough thing. The data is valuable to people who like to min / max and of course for developers for balance purposes. I'd just hate to see it become the core focus of the community because that's not really what I'm looking for in Pantheon.
/agree
rojo said:To some extent you can change who you play with. However, I think you can't really get away from it if meters are what most people choose to focus on, and my concern is that they will over time, given the chance. There's a lot more to a game like EQ than straight deeps, but that's all the meters focus on. Other roles are rarely benchmarked in any meaningful capacity. I do like the idea of there being a training dummy or the like that you can test yourself on, but it would be nice to keep it out of groups. I think you can tell when someone is slacking in a regular group, and in my experience it's pretty unlikely that one or two people playing non optimally are going to be the reason that you can't kill a boss in a raid, so the point is moot.
I definitely get that it's a tough thing. The data is valuable to people who like to min / max and of course for developers for balance purposes. I'd just hate to see it become the core focus of the community because that's not really what I'm looking for in Pantheon.
You're probably right in your assumption that one or two people slacking means that you can't kill a raid boss. But still, in raid or grouping environment, a person slacking will put more strain on both tank and healer, and while I really like being healer and healing serious content, I very much appreciate it when people don't slack.
@Duffy Yeah nobody likes it when other players don't put in some effort in team games. This is a little off topic, but to clarify, my thought with the raid comment was sort of rooted in my WoW experience. In that game a wipe usually happens because of a failure to execute a strategy based on the encounter's mechanics, a raid wide lack of dps, or a slip up by one of the tanks or a couple slip ups by the healers. You don't really need a DPS meter to know which of those occurred, though it might help in one of those situations. Caveat: unfortunately I don't have any EQ raiding experience, so I'm not sure if my WoW experience translates at all here.
In general I think people (probably yourself included) are willing to give others the benefit of the doubt when they're not performing as well as they should. Maybe it's gear, maybe it's a lack of execution or experience with the encounter. Given the team oriented nature of an MMO, I think you need to succeed together or fail together, and sometimes that means succeeding while carrying some underperforming players on your shoulders. Some people definitely slack on purpose, and that sucks, but for the most part I haven't had too many problems with it so far.
Now if the primary goal is to pick out those players who are slacking, what might be an interesting alternative to a DPS meter would be some kind of benchmark of activity. Maybe something that measures a player's time spent attacking / casting / whatever. It would certainly be a challenge to try to implement in a normalized fashion across all classes. Might be a fun project for an enterprising programmer if the combat logs are indeed available / parsable when the game releases. Maybe I'll play around with the idea myself if I have the time.
shihiro said:Wholeheartedly agree. Nothing worse than being called out because some program somewhere said I wasn't performing on par, even if my class isn't meant to be a DPSer. I get called out like that on Final Fantasy 14 as a healer class ("Well, your DPS wasn't above 300...you failed", etc). So please, dear gods, no sanctioned group-wide DPS meters. If they're available, make them available as a single-person when on training dummies (if those exist). IE: I start combat with a training dummy, a small meter pops up so I can guage myself on my own performance and adjust as needed. These group-wide meters shouldn't exist, and I feel that they lead to elitism. Granted, even with the training dummy meters you'll get guilds that want you to post a screenshot of your DPS (Elitists) before you can join their raid team, so even that may be detrimental.
As you can see from my avatar, I am right there with you. I thought it was ridiculous that I had to actively DPS while healing in FF14. Sure, certain encounters where the boss isnt dealing damage.... I'll throw out some damage if mana permits.. but jeez.
With that being said, FF14 had VERY strict DPS checks... If any game needs a DPS meter, its that game. The need for a meter in Pantheon is going to be dictated by how "difficult" content is... If it's "FF14 Hard", then its going to become a standard tool for the community whether the Dev's here sanction the use or not. If it's not sanctioned, groups will just remove you for low DPS and not tell you why you were removed to avoid getting banned.
Silvanoshi said:shihiro said:Wholeheartedly agree. Nothing worse than being called out because some program somewhere said I wasn't performing on par, even if my class isn't meant to be a DPSer. I get called out like that on Final Fantasy 14 as a healer class ("Well, your DPS wasn't above 300...you failed", etc). So please, dear gods, no sanctioned group-wide DPS meters. If they're available, make them available as a single-person when on training dummies (if those exist). IE: I start combat with a training dummy, a small meter pops up so I can guage myself on my own performance and adjust as needed. These group-wide meters shouldn't exist, and I feel that they lead to elitism. Granted, even with the training dummy meters you'll get guilds that want you to post a screenshot of your DPS (Elitists) before you can join their raid team, so even that may be detrimental.
As you can see from my avatar, I am right there with you. I thought it was ridiculous that I had to actively DPS while healing in FF14. Sure, certain encounters where the boss isnt dealing damage.... I'll throw out some damage if mana permits.. but jeez.
With that being said, FF14 had VERY strict DPS checks... If any game needs a DPS meter, its that game. The need for a meter in Pantheon is going to be dictated by how "difficult" content is... If it's "FF14 Hard", then its going to become a standard tool for the community whether the Dev's here sanction the use or not. If it's not sanctioned, groups will just remove you for low DPS and not tell you why you were removed to avoid getting banned.
I agree. That currently even happens in FFXIV where it isn't sanctioned. However, I will note that most of the time you can tell when someone is bad without having to look at any form of meter. In other words: did they avoid the right mechanic, did they perform the mechanics successfuly, was the instance cleared, etc. You don't really need a meter to support the decision to kick someone if they fail to meet standard (minimum) requirements. Are there still people who do substandard DPS while maintaining the ability to dodge mechanics? Sure there are, but at least they're alive at the end of the day.
I personally don't care either way. If they're allowed then i'll use them. If not then i won't.
When a game has tight dps checks and short enrage timers, then of course players will find the use of meters as a way to determine efficiency. You're almost encouraged to in that scenario. It's up to the devs to not put the players in that scenario.
Realistically I think DPS checks are lazy coding anyway. This is coming from who literally plays nothing except the highest dps classes available in a game.
I use the same argument for parsing that I use for cash shops and most other "controversial" game design elements: hate the player, not the game.
A nice person isn't otherwise going to become an asshole because you gave him a parsing program. Likewise, an asshole isn't going to become a stand-up guy because you took his log parsing away from him. People are going to be good or bad independent of what tools they have available to them. The best thing you can do is just keep the toxic elements as far away from you as possible, and they're going to exist regardless.
Toxicity exists in every form of competition.
@Liav Yeah, absolutely agree with you as far as people being jerks or not and all that. The point of my original post was mostly to bring up the idea that the meters pull back the curtain quite a bit, and that seems to make most people unable to see the forest for the trees. i.e. people are so focused on the meters that they forget there's this whole game they're playing with (hopefully) lore, cool stuff to see, and mechanics beyond damage. DPS meters aren't the only thing that can have that effect, but anecdotally I think they're a major culprit.
rojo said:@Liav Yeah, absolutely agree with you as far as people being jerks and all that. The point of my original post was mostly to bring up the idea that the meters pull back the curtain quite a bit, and that seems to make most people unable to see the forest for the trees.
I understand, but like I was saying, DPS checks are simply lazy coding (within reason).
Optimally, DPS just expedites the end result of an encounter (within reason). A guild that pulls 15-20% less DPS than another guild shouldn't be any less able to complete a well designed counter, it should just take longer. Video games by nature involve some math, and that isn't going to change really. The optimal path will always be pretty evident by the people who care to investigate, even if it involves packet sniffing or some other method of finding the information.
If the game content is compelling enough it won't really be that big of a deal, though.
I think we all can agree that it will come down to what the game offers, from there we make the best of it. Meters for yourself or raid leaders makes sense if it is needed to succeed in the game. Having it for anyone to spam openly will provide bigger issues. I want an environment as far away from WoW as possible, and have little to no Add-on capabilities.
Pyye
Pyye said:I think we all can agree that it will come down to what the game offers, from there we make the best of it. Meters for yourself or raid leaders makes sense if it is needed to succeed in the game. Having it for anyone to spam openly will provide bigger issues. I want an environment as far away from WoW as possible, and have little to no Add-on capabilities.
Pyye
I don't think it's possible from a programming standpoint to only make such information available to a raid leader. If it's available to yourself, I can type in the information myself if the meter in question lacks the ability to copy & paste the number value, and we can compare from there.
Pantheon is subscribing to a classical tab-target model which reduces player defenses (block, parry, dodge, riposte, etc.) to RNG. The model also means that player attacks are subject to the same systems, with an inventory window full of numbers that will provide a pretty simple picture of stat contribution values with diminishing returns and whatever else. Also, situational gear is allegedly going to be a huge thing in Pantheon, which means that finding ideal configurations for specific situations is going to become even more important (and math-based).
Overall, the game is going to be reduced to math in the late stages. Technology hasn't progressed to the point where we can move beyond that. Not until holodecks become a thing.
That said, what is your objection to looking at the positive things about WoW instead of dismissing it outright? Trying to pretend like the most successful MMORPG in human history has nothing positive to offer the genre is kind of shortsighted.
I'm totally down for parsing and dps meters. I think it helps people evaluate their performance and adds a little healthy competition. However, I hate the extreme min/max cuture it brings out in people (as a lot of people have talked about above...).
In my mind, the answer to this problem is that the dps doesn't matter as much. Fighting raid bosses (or any group content) should be more about the interaction within the group, working together, different classes adding things to the fight that don't register on the dps meter - but without them the fight is lost. Things like counterspelling, shielding, taunting, short combat buffs on other classes, mana/endurance regen spells, poison cures, etc... Then there are cc ablities... The list can go on and on about ablilites essential to a fight, but that won't show up on damage meters.
If the Pantheon team can make the game/combat about teamwork and not stictly about dps, then it won't matter if there are meters in the game. A meter will be a fun tool, but not a standard.
They should put a few dps races into the game though, just for fun. :)